Jonathan Quick

SAN JOSE -- Kings Coach Darryl Sutter started off his morning session with reporters here by saying he was thinking more about next week's events than Saturday's regular-season finale. Then he proved it. Sutter, cagily, found a way to issue a motivational (playoff) challenge for his No. 1 goalie Jonathan Quick, who has received a ton of recent and well-deserved notice as a potential Vezina Trophy winner with 35 victories and a goals-against average of 1.93. It started with discussion about Quick's rare minor penalty, for interference late in the second period with the Kings leading 3-1, causing a massive momentum swing when the Sharks scored on the ensuing power play.

Now the Kings will feel some heat. Not so much in the Western Conference finals. They still  have a 3-1 series lead on Phoenix. But the Coyotes' 2-0 victory at Staples Center on Sunday afternoon sent things back to the sweltering desert for Game 5 on Tuesday, where life will be a less-than-comfy 106 degrees, according to accuweather.com. Shane Doan's two goals will force the Kings to sweat out one more game, spoiling Sunday's coronation plans that had even brought owner Philip Anschutz out of hiding.

Kings Coach Terry Murray will change his lines but not his goaltender for Sunday's win-or-vacation playoff game against Vancouver at Staples Center, calling Jonathan Quick "our guy" despite two shaky performances in teamwide breakdowns the Canucks have exploited to take a 3-2 series lead. Quick, overworked during the season and off his game since the Olympics, gave up five goals on 26 shots in two stints during the Kings' 7-2 loss Friday at Vancouver. The blame wasn't his alone, but he didn't make any momentum-changing stops then or in Game 4, when the Kings squandered three one-goal leads in a 6-4 loss.

By the time the Kings came home to face the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 3 of the 1993 Campbell Conference finals, they had played 14 games and had traveled to Calgary twice, Vancouver twice, and Toronto for the first of three visits. By comparison the current Kings' journey to the West final against the Phoenix Coyotes — which resumes Thursday at Staples Center — has been a romp. The Kings had to visit Vancouver twice to finish the Canucks in five games but left the Pacific time zone only once in their second-round sweep of the St. Louis Blues.

All the diagrams coaches draw on dry-erase boards to illustrate their game plans, all the hours they spend analyzing opponents' breakout patterns and penalty-killing schemes -- all of them can be a complete waste of ink and breath. Sometimes what it takes to win is guts, guile, and a goaltender whose assurance is growing as rapidly as his save percentage.

In his minor-league days, Jonathan Quick slept so deeply that his teammates would stumble off their bus after a trip and the equipment managers would unload the gear and think all was done only to find the goalie under a seat, slumbering. That made for good jokes but bad mornings -- especially when the Kings sent goaltending development guru Kim Dillabaugh to Manchester, N.H., to work with Quick. Only Quick was late, having overslept. A good scare -- a demotion to the ECHL during the 2007-08 season -- and a good, loud alarm clock changed his habits.

If the Kings' first-round playoff series against San Jose does not become Jonathan Quick's showcase, if the 25-year-old goaltender does not dominate the seventh-seeded Kings' matchup against the second-seeded Sharks starting Thursday at HP Pavilion, it will be a quick series for the Kings, and not in a good way. "He's the focal point of everything," Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi said. "Every team that's ever won the Stanley Cup has always had a goalie who's either been great all season or turned it on in the postseason, and he'll have to be our best player.

Hockey's time-honored mentality dictates that no matter the injury, you tape an aspirin to it and go back out there. No self-respecting player would beg out of a game because he's tired. Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick , who has played a career-high 4,041 minutes, did not ask to sit while Jonathan Bernier started and won the last two games. But Quick said Friday having time to refine his game will benefit him Saturday night when he faces the Ducks at Staples Center with the Kings' magic number to clinch a playoff spot at four points.

After all this time the Kings still have the capacity to surprise their coach. And themselves. They earned a 4-3 shootout victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday, thanks to an unexpectedly slick move by defenseman Matt Greene to set up their second goal and a bold poke check by goaltender Jonathan Quick on Matt Calvert, the Blue Jackets' second shooter in the tiebreaker. Those unlikely ploys, combined with their usual excellent penalty killing during a lengthy five-on-three disadvantage, left them 5-0-2 on their 10-game odyssey and extended their point streak to 8-0-2, one short of the club record set in 1974.

Kings Coach Terry Murray finds a good time in the strangest moments. The Kings sweated through a hand-wringer in regulation, then in overtime. They fell behind in the shootout, before getting goals from Jarret Stoll and Anze Kopitar to squeeze out a 2-1 victory over Calgary on Monday. "It was intense," Murray said. "It was a fun game to play and a fun game to coach. " Of course, at this point in the season, Murray's criteria for a good time are simple: two points. "That was the best part of it," Murray said.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Kings' dormant power play stirred to life, as did forward Jeff Carter, and the Phoenix Coyotes picked the second game of the Western Conference finals to look like they had spent too much time in the midday sun. The Coyotes simply lost it, and now the Kings are within two victories of winning the series and reaching the Stanley Cup finals for the second time in franchise history. Getting there took a collective effort, featuring the first career playoff hat trick from Carter and another goal from rookie Dwight King in the Kings' 4-0 victory over the Coyotes on Tuesday night at Jobing.com Arena.

Canada's Team stood between the Kings and a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals nearly two decades ago. Now, it's merely the NHL's team. The NHL has owned the Coyotes since 2009 when it pulled the franchise out of bankruptcy for about $140 million. A warning to the Kings' lively Twitter feed: Mocking the Coyotes is like tweaking the NHL. Do it at your own peril. (But primers on bankruptcy, debt ratings and the power of the Arizona watchdog group the Goldwater Institute are best saved for another time.)

Justin Williams, Dustin Penner, Rob Scuderi and Colin Fraser have traveled this path before, feeling their confidence grow faster than their playoff beards as their respective teams marched to the Stanley Cup championship. Williams emerged as a scoring threat with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006 and added seven postseason goals in 25 games as they defeated Edmonton in the Cup finals. Penner made a splash by scoring 29 goals for the Ducks in 2007 and teamed with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry on the "Kid Line," adding size and production to a deep, dominant team.

Time off hasn't dulled Jonathan Quick's reflexes. The Kings' stellar goaltender took two days off the ice but still displayed excellent speed and lateral moves while trying to dodge onrushing reporters at the team's practice facility Tuesday. The media horde succeeded where the No. 1-seeded Vancouver Canucks and No. 2-seeded St. Louis Blues had failed, cornering Quick as the Kings began preparing to face the Phoenix Coyotes in the Western Conference finals later this week.

That break between Kings appearances in the final four of the Stanley Cup playoffs lasted a lot longer than anyone ever intended, anticipated or dreamed possible. Nineteen years, in fact. It's little wonder that the final 20 minutes of the Kings' 3-1 victory against St. Louis in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals Sunday at Staples Center felt something almost like two decades. They became the first No. 8 team to eliminate the top two seeded teams in a conference, taking out No. 1 Vancouver in five games and sweeping the No. 2 Blues in four.

Heroes for more than one day … There are the often impenetrable Jonathan Quick of the Kings in goal and Kings captain Dustin Brown and his Blues counterpart David Backes with their ferocious physical give and take. ("Cripes," said St. Louis Coach Ken Hitchcock of their bone-rattling second-period collision in Game 3.) But Hitchcock pointed to Kings defenseman Drew Doughty as the best player in this series. The Kings lead the Blues, 3-0, in the Western Conference semifinals and Game 4 is noon Sunday at Staples Center.

For perspective on the significance of Jonathan Quick's club-record shutout streak of 188 minutes and 10 seconds and historic three straight shutouts, consider this: It was only four years ago that the Kings used seven goalies and couldn't find one reliable enough to prevent them from finishing 29th in a 30-team league. The previous season they threw an out-of-his-league Yutaka Fukufuji in net four times, apparently traumatizing him so badly that he never played another NHL game.

Kings Coach Terry Murray acknowledged he probably played goaltender Jonathan Quick "a little too much down the last month" but he wanted a potentially favorable playoff matchup against Phoenix and didn't feel secure starting an out-of-rhythm Erik Ersberg . Quick appeared in a franchise-record 72 games and played 4,258 minutes and 27 seconds, second in the NHL. Of the eight goalies who played at least 4,000 minutes only San Jose's ...

Finally, the names Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille and Kelly Hrudey are on the verge of having some long-awaited company, some fresh names in the Kings' playoff ledger. How about Mike Richards, Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick, to name a few? The Kings are one game away from going somewhere they have been only one other time in franchise history, going past the second round of the playoffs. The Kings pulled to the brink of the Western Conference finals with a 4-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night at Staples Center, taking a 3-0 series lead.